Jerry Moore: Cleverness or stupidity? You be the judge

Thursday

To my new favorite reader: I received your e-mail message last week, the one that read, “You are a racist fat bastard, and you lost all credibility when you voted for Bush twice."

To my new favorite reader:

I received your e-mail message last week, the one that read, “You are a racist fat bastard, and you lost all credibility when you voted for Bush twice.”

Wow, that’s pretty strong stuff, particularly since you declined to reference what it was that made you so angry. I’m going to climb out on a limb and presume it was the column I wrote last week regarding U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s decision not to sport a U.S. flag lapel pin. But please let me know if I’m wrong about this.

If you’ll recall (which I’m sure you will), I compared Obama’s actions to a man going on a business trip who chooses not to wear his wedding ring. Such a person, I wrote, was signaling that he was willing to play the field and neglect his commitment — in the married man’s case, with his wedding vows; and in Obama’s case, with his nationalistic loyalties.

You have to admit, it’s a pretty bold analogy. I thought it was a stroke of genius when I came up with it.

The reason I was so enamored with myself for devising such an idea wasn’t for its clarity or relevance to the presidential campaign. It was because of its outrageousness, its utter silliness. Who else but a numbskull would cook up something so ridiculous?

I started writing a straight-forward column about the Obama lapel pin controversy. Anyone who thought this story had any merit for serious discussion wasn’t worth listening to, I concluded.

Who cares what a presidential candidate wears on his or her lapel? Don’t we have more important issues to debate regarding these people, such as their stance on the war or what economic policies they’d pursue?

At some point in my column I thought up the wedding ring/lapel pin analogy. It’s original design was to point out how foolish it was to waste time debating about how candidates accessorize their wardrobes.

But since I never considered the lapel pin story a serious issue, I decided not to write a serious column. I opted to use the wedding ring comparison as a sarcastic way to point out how silly all of this was.

After writing my tongue-in-cheek piece, I asked a couple of friends if the sarcasm was obvious enough for people to detect or if I was too clever for my own good. Perhaps my writing was so crafty that I had actually disguised my sarcasm as a serious examination on Obama’s patriotism.

Both of my friends (one of whom has known me for nearly 20 years) assured me that I don’t possess a clever bone in my body, so my column should be seen for what it is. I accepted that readers would detect the sarcasm and understand it was written for the sake of humor — nothing more.

But based on the response you and other readers have had, perhaps my friends were wrong. I’m a much more clever writer than they believe.

Unless, of course, you’re truly the clever person here. Yes, I think that’s it. No one could possibly have taken that column seriously, and your e-mail gave me some of my own sarcastic medicine.

You really had me going, I must confess. You knew all the buttons to push by attacking my opinions, morals and vanity all in one swoop.

By turning the tables on me, you’ve made me look like the stupid one here. As foolish as I feel for falling into your trap, I’m relieved that you knew what I was doing and were a step ahead of me.

Boy, how could I have been duped? There’s no logic to your e-mail, so I should have seen it coming.

As a parody of my sarcasm, your message is a work of brilliance. Kudos!

Jerry Moore is a news editor with GateHouse Media Suburban Newspapers. He can be reached at jmoore@libertysuburban.com.